WEEKEND FIRE DESTROYS ND POTATO PLANT

Published online: Sep 27, 2011Potato Storage

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MINTO, N.D.-A potato processing plant in the northeast North Dakota town of Minto was destroyed by a weekend fire.The Walsh County Sheriff's Department tells WDAZ-TV (http://bit.ly/r9MRpr) that workers were inside the Lone Wolf Farms plant on Sunday but no one was hurt. The cause of the blaze was not immediately determined.The family-owned plant cleans and ships potatoes to supermarkets and wholesalers around the country.

For passersby, a farmer tilling his field may entrap one to feelings of a simpler, more nostalgic time period. However, as 13 kids from Wyoming County 4-H in upstate New York recently learned, farming is nothing like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Of the more than 100 diseases of potato, bacterial ring rot is one of the few zero-tolerance pests. If just one seed potato on a farm is found to have this disease, no seed on that farm can be certified.